US and Israeli embassies hit with bomb threats in Buenos Aires
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — The U.S. and Israeli embassies in Argentina’s capital received bomb threats via email on Wednesday, including one that read “Jews we are going to kill you all.”
Federal police evacuated the areas around the two embassies — one in the city, the other in a suburb — and helicopters patrolled the area. Officials opened an investigation to determine the origin of the threats.
The U.S. embassy said it is back to normal operations on Wednesday afternoon, Reuters reported.
“They are coming for democracy, not only for Jews, for democracy,” said Jorge Knoblovits, president of DAIA, Argentina’s Jewish political umbrella group.
In an interview with the La Nacion TV news channel about threats to Jews, he added: “We are not canceling anything. We are not stopping anything. We are continuing with full Jewish life.” He was interviewed from Zagreb, Croatia, where he is participating in an international meeting about the situation in Israel.
Argentina has reinforced security at Jewish institutions in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas, which has led to an increase in antisemitic incidents for Jews around the world. But Knoblovits said attendance at Jewish houses of worship and other places has not decreased.
A number of Argentinian expatriates were killed in the Hamas attack, all on kibbutzes in Israel’s south that were popular destinations for South Americans who moved to Israel. Argentina, like a number of other countries, has worked to airlift its citizens out of Israel; another plane arrived from Israel on Wednesday.
The Israeli embassy was attacked by a car bomb on March 17, 1992, that killed 29 and wounded more than 200. After that, the embassy was relocated to the 10th floor of a business building in the center of Buenos Aires.
Two years later, a bomb killed 85 people at the city’s AMIA Jewish center.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.